YOUR CART

What is a Community?

As we enter our new unit COMMUNITIES, students have begun brainstorming a variety of communities that we know about and discussed how they are alike and different. As we've learned about different communities, we've learned that communities have leaders, jobs, rules, and have to use cooperation! We know that each of us belong to a community, so we started exploring how we fit into them. During this unit, the students will explore what it means to be a member of a community and how communities can be successful. So far, the students have learned that our classroom is a community and that they are also a part of a family community and school community! During our study of families, students learned that all families are unique and special and not all families look the same. Each student created a family glyph to show who lives in their house and were able to talk to share about their family with their friends. As we learned about our classroom community, we talked about the things a community needs and discussed if we had them in our classroom community. This led us to create a classroom job chart to hold us accountable for completing jobs throughout the day! We also have taken a school tour to learn more about the jobs in our school community! In the upcoming weeks, students will explore our city community, state community, and country community. We can't wait to learn more about our place in the world!

Language Arts

Our Guided Reading groups are up and running! It's exciting to see that the students are all growing as readers! This time of our day is when each student receives targeted instruction on his/her appropriate level from the teachers in small groups while the rest of the students are engaged in independent literacy activities from our Daily Five Choices. Please have your child read their Guided Reading book to you at home every night and praise and encourage their progress! Then, return it immediately to your child's folder so that he/she can read it with me at school the next day!

Daily 5

The students are doing a great job with Daily 5! They are becoming so independent and working hard to become better readers and writers! During Daily 5, the students can choose from the following activities:

1. Read to Self- we practice reading books and using our reading strategies on our own reading level.2. Read to Someone- we read books to or with a buddy and practice using our reading strategies.3. Work on Writing- we write stories with text and illustrations of our choosing.4. Listen to Reading- stories are read aloud to us on an IPAD or on a discman.5. Word Work- we practice different literacy skills, making words, and writing words.

Math and Buddies!

Since returning from break, the students have begun something new… Calendar Binders! We keep track of the weather, seasons, months, and days of the week in our own individual binders. This practices a variety of math skills and is a favorite time of the day! Our focus in math has been 3-D shapes and reviewing teen numbers (and higher numbers!). We are all becoming experts on 3D shapes! We can name them, find them in our environment, and find 2D shapes within the 3D shapes! Check and see if we can find any at home or in our community! We even got to make 3D shapes with our buddies! They used playdoh and toothpicks to create several different 3D shapes! Not only did we have fun doing this, but our weekly meetings with the eighth graders help build a strong community with our Buddies!